Looking Into Rune Factory

[Nester the Lark]

So, as I've previously mentioned, I've never played any of the Rune Factory games before, but the announcement for Rune Factory 4 Special in last February's Nintendo Direct caught my attention. I've been looking for a new RPG to get invested in, and the more I've looked into Rune Factory, the more it sounds like something I'd enjoy. So, I thought I'd start a thread to talk about it a little bit.

I've been aware of the Rune Factory series probably about as long as it's been around, but I didn't really know much about it other than that they're a spin-off of the Story of Seasons/Harvest Moon/Bokujou Monogatari series (which I've also never played), and that they've been described as "Harvest Moon with dungeons." I think I vaguely considered Rune Factory: Frontier back during the Operation Rainfall campaign because they were encouraging people to buy RPGs on the Wii, but I never really looked too deeply into it.

But the combination of a dungeon crawler with farm sim and town life aspects sounds like the kind of RPG I'm looking for right now. Something with a story and characters I can get invested in, but also open-ended so that I can just relax and enjoy the world if I want to. I also like the cute style and atmosphere it seems to have.

Being a niche series, it's been difficult to find good resources about it. I think I came across more retrospectives of the Atelier series than I have of Rune Factory, but here are a few videos I thought were informative.

This is the only real retrospective I've come across, and it's fairly brief, but it seems to explain things pretty well.



This video talks about why the series disappeared for so many years. Obviously a little out-of-date now.



This video talks more specifically about Rune Factory 4, but also touches on the series overall. It came out after the announcement of RF4 Special, so it's fairly recent. The creator has a lot of other videos on the RF series, but mainly about more specific topics.



RF4S comes out in Japan on July 25 (one day before Fire Emblem: Three Houses), so I assume a North American release will be sometime in the Fall. Too bad it comes out in the midst of all the other big games I'm looking forward to.

[nocturnal YL]

I haven't watched the videos until now. These videos don't seem to say much about the games' contents, but the basic idea is that it's a cross between farming and ARPG. I'm not entirely sure if I like this idea…?

One thing I do want to know is whether these games actually end. The first video talked about having a large amount of dialogs that would only start to loop after three years, but if they do loop, does that mean it's one of those endless games? There seems to be an overarching plot, but that seems to be not of much importance? I like long games, but barring arcade-style games with small replayable sessions, they need to end, as otherwise I'd feel like I was playing through the game for nothing.

I did some search on this topic: therunefactory.fandom.com/wiki/Rune_Factory_4
It seems that there is a proper story, and it will eventually end. Ending the story will essentially put the player in free play mode.

I'm still not entirely convinced, but I should probably try first and comment later, if my interests in other game series is any indication.

[Nester the Lark]

Well, as I said, it's hard to find good resources for such a niche series.

I've been lurking around some of the Rune Factory message boards at GameFAQs, as well as the Rune Factory Reddit, just to get a feel for what fans say about the series. I've never played any of the games that it's frequently compared to (Story of Seasons/Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing etc.), so that doesn't help me a whole lot. I do see people say that Rune Factory is much more RPG-like than those games, though.

The games definitely have endings, as there are credits after finishing the story. The impression I get is that they are generally open-ended with a story you can follow if you choose to, but no pressure to do so.

I've seen at least one person say the farming aspect is not really that important, and that the main emphasis is on combat and dungeon crawling. A lot of fans also seem to love the dating/marriage aspect (one of the most hoped-for additions to RF5 is an option for same-sex marriages).

So, yeah, I'm just kinda patching together an image at this point. For me, I feel like this is an instance of a game just kinda grabbing my attention due to whatever random combination of me being in a certain mood and finding a particular game with a certain style or gameplay that seems appealing to me. I've learned to trust my instincts in these situations, so I do plan on picking up Rune Factory 4 Special whenever Xseed localizes it.

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EDIT: OK, I found some old trailers from the original release of Rune Factory 4 that go into pretty good detail of the various game systems. Maybe you'll find these informative.

[nocturnal YL]

"BTW I love you" seems to be a great way to end every conversation.

I want to know more about raising relationship points. I like linear stories, so I hope there won't be too many mutually excusive events.

The how-to video on farming worries me a bit. Do I have to manually tend to the farms every in-game day? That sounds very tedious.

[Nester the Lark]

Here's the first proper English trailer for Rune Factory 4 Special.



Still quite looking forward to this, despite recent reports about Xseed Games not crediting former employees who left the company before a game's release, or worse, patching thier names out of an already released game. This isn't terribly unusual in the video game industry, but it's still off-putting to hear about it.

...Um, is this where I say "BTW, I love you?"

[Evie ❤✿]

Mm.. Yeah I guess it's like, by the way I love you to everyone you meet in the game is silly (if you live in Moco Moco Friends), otherwise yes don't do it.

I've been fond of this game. I used to be an introvert now extrovert. For instance people symbolise red with war; it's also birth-right and affection, romance. This and my crush and best friend, she likes Rune Factory too. Rune Factory reminds me of both Home Town Story and Harvest Moon - I used to play around with Harvest Moon as a kid.

[nocturnal YL]

Oh no…

Why does it have to have a non-conformant icon?

[nocturnal YL]

I started playing RF4, and I'm currently at the 6th day. I play as Frey because I like her design better. (Why can't both appear in-game, though?)

There isn't much to say story-wise yet, but I like the pacing so far. Seems that I don't need to worry too much about not having enough time. But speaking of that, why do every life simulation-style game have to feature a clock?

The graphics and UI feel like they not-so-elegantly converted a Nintendo DS (not 3DS) game into widescreen format. The character models and 2D maps all scream DS (the low end of DS too; some DS RPGs are fully 3D and look better). It even retains tiny windows for things like stats and descriptions that can be zoomed in with buttons. I hope the next game can feel more native.

Combat is simple, and a bit on the slow side even though the player would greatly benefit from being ableto act fast, as with any game with ARPG combat. Even restoring health is a hassle, and I managed to lose all HP so many times while I'm trying to eat. And the medical bills are high. Just because everyone is nice doesn't mean they won't cut deep into your wallet.

I get hit really hard in Hard mode, while Normal seems a bit too easy. I guess going back to Hard but stay a few levels above would feel just right?

It's too soon to say if this game will grow on me. I may also want to (without certainty) start playing Atelier Ryza, which is both new and very popular.

And while this is relative minor, I welcome having a non-silent protagonist with a clearly defined personality.

The premise of being a princess (kind of), running a town, gathering materials and fighting really remind me of Atelier Meruru, minus the time limit.

[Nester the Lark]

I'm still waiting for Xseed to even announce a release date. They suddenly started promoting the game again a few weeks ago on Twitter, and they recently put it up for pre-order on their own website, as well as retailers, so it must be getting close, right?

[nocturnal YL]

I've just finished the first arc. I was surprised to see the story end so soon (taking only 26 days in-game) and ending so abruptly. And there wasn't really any indication that it's not the entirety of the story (besides all tha unexplored stuff). There's even a credit roll, and no indication on what to do next. I only knew it's just the first part because I looked it up.

Anyway, so far it feels like… not my kind of thing? The whole game reminds me of some of the smaller-scale RPGs on GBA and DS. The action part feels bad, though it has more to do with my inability to play beat-em-ups. It's easy to get overwhelmed when engaging multiple enemies, and they also hit very hard. Also, forget what I said about the difficulty. Normal is actually quite challenging after just the first dungeon (even though I'm following the recommended levels); and I actually changed to Easy because I don't like the combat. But I do have to praise the fact that movements are all analog rather than having it locked to just the 8 basic directions. Take note, Nintendo.

The story so far feels a bit too standard to me. Doesn't help that the graphics and music also feel generic. But there is one thing I do like a lot about the town: people running around getting busy about their lives, and sometimes there are events involving larger groups. It makes the place feel lively, and largely avoids the "everyone on standby and wait for the protagonist" issue seen in many RPG towns. It does make locating individual inhabitants difficult, though.

Overall, this feels like a mid-tier game to me. Good enough for me to still want to see it end, but it also feels more at home with the best of those old browser games rather than on a console (even a portable one).

[nocturnal YL]

So now I'm about halfway(?) done. I find resources (be it gold or RP or status-healing items) in this game pretty limited. I think this is by design, since the game encourages the player to sleep often in sync with the clock, but one problem I find is that things like farming also require daily attention (you can ask tamed monsters to help, but they can get tired and you still need to check often if you need to change their routines), which means dungeon sessions often have to be broken into parts. Fortunately, farming isn't that tedious, but it still makes the flow of the dungeons not very smooth.

Oh, and running out of RP will make further actions consume large chunks of HP instead. You can get yourself hospitalised by just swinging a fishing rod when having 0 RP and being low on HP. Worse: right before you try to save and sleep, you press the wrong button, and you end up losing half your gold as medical fees.

Also not a fan of the farming aspect. It feels like mundane work, and there's only so much that can be automated.

And why isn't there an option to go back to the title screen without saving?

I'm sorry to say this, but while it's not a bad game by any means and the town part is actually pretty enjoyable, I don't think I'll like RF4 as much as I initially anticipated. (I don't know how'd it stand as a farming game, since I don't play those.)

[Nester the Lark]

That's a shame it doesn't seem to be clicking for you. I'm still interested in trying it, myself, but with how long it's taking the English version to come out, it might end up getting pushed behind some other higher priority games.

Thanks for giving your impressions, tho.

[nocturnal YL]

Oh, please don't let my comments discourage you from trying. If anything, I want to see what's your take on it, which may very well be different from mine.

There's also the possibility that I'm simply not playing in an efficient way. The game gives out so many options, and I may be too focused on trying to advance the mainline story that I missed out a lot of upgrades that can make things easier.

[nocturnal YL]

I've reached the final dungeon as far as the main story is concerned. (Well, the game considers this a prologue seeing that the main antagonist is defeated.)

Looking into several guides (WIKIWIKI.jp, Rune Factory Wiki), I really have been rushing through the story without paying enough attention to the other aspects, especially the forgery.

Now I have a very low forgery level, since I just relied on weapons and accessories found in the dungeons. This isn't as sustainable as making weapons myself at higher levels, and buying weapons from the shop is out of the question considering how expensive they are. I can also give monsters more farm tasks, which I also didn't fully explore. I also didn't use fertilisers enough beyond specific tasks, but that partly has to do with those being too expensive.

This game has a tendency of introducing features without stressing on the importance of using them. Contrast this with something like Atelier or Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE, where these secondary features are often compulsory for advancing the story. I guess in RF4's case, the sheer absurdity of buying weapons or manual farming (once it gets big) do serve as hints, but I think they aren't obvious enough. Perhaps strangely, I noticed this issue with food (for temporary stat boosts and RP recovery) and I was making my own food very early on.

Improvements I'd like to see in Rune Factory 5: (1) longer days, 1 real-life second = 1 in-game minute is too fast; (2) better awareness of various facilities so that I don't get stuck late in the game; (3) graphics that don't look 15 years behind even by handheld standards (it looks like an early DS game); (4) lower overall difficulty (Easy is still too hard) and (5) have better physics.

I'm going to take a break from this game, not because I don't want to continue (for all the faults found in the game, I'm still motivated enough to see the ending, although I am a bit burnt out), but there are so many other games out there. Even if there's nothing of my interest announced for the rest of 2020, I'll still have enough games to play.

Finally, a bit of trivia: there are quite a lot of references to both Rune Factory and other pop culture, like the descriptions for the Blue Ribbon (Wizardry) and Red Ribbon (Dragon Ball) items, and some of the generic visitors (one of them is called Pit the Angel). And then there's this weapon called the Twin Leek, which is forged using two leeks and adds 39 to most stats. The item description says it looks good on Frey.

[Nester the Lark]

Finally, Rune Factory 4 Special is announced for release in North America on February 25, and in Europe on February 28. I was starting to think Rune Factory 5 would be out in Japan before we got RF4S in the West.



Unfortunately, Samurai Shodown on Switch is due out at the same time, so I'll probably hold off on this for a while, anyway.